New Movie: HAGETAKA

We just finished shooting a feature film about "vulture" investment funds and hostile takeovers. The film is called "Hagetaka" (the vowels are basically the same as in Spanish, so say it like that and you'll have the pronunciation right...four syllables), and it was shot in Tokyo over the past two months. Keiji Ohtomo directs.

This is the film version of a TV drama that was popular a few years ago. Many of the actors from the drama, such as Nao Omori and Chiaki Kuriyama (of Kill Bill fame), are also in the movie.

I play the young, straight-laced righthand man of one of the main characters (played by Tetsuji Tamayama) who heads a Chinese government-backed investment fund that is attempting to buy out a famous Japanese auto company.

The other actors that were major players in the Chinese fund were played by Joe Nakamura and Asuka Higuchi. Asuka is shooting a TV show in Beijing at the moment, but I was able to hang out with Joe this past Thursday night when NHK and Toho threw a party to celebrate the completion of filming.

Hagetaka hits theaters in Japan on June 6th.

New Movie: HAGETAKA

Rush Hour 3

Well, it was mercifully short.

By my watch the film was over in about 85 minutes, give or take (not including the credits or the 15 minutes of ads that preceded it). An hour and 25 minutes is just enough time, apparently, to recycle all of the material from the first two Rush Hour installments.

Parts are entertaining, but Rush Hour 3 is basically the same fight involving the same people in a new setting (Paris). The once comical chemistry between Chan and Tucker has passed its sell-by date (think Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in the final Lethal Weapon), and we should all hope that the owners of the Rush Hour franchise quit while they're ahead (ahead?).


A grown up version of Soo Yung and her father, Ambassador Han, return to the fold, and Max Von Sydow (playing Reynard) takes a turn as the fatherly aristocrat. Hiroyuki Sanada (as Kenji) and Yuki Kudoh (as Jasmine) give Japan a substantial presence in Rush Hour 3. By the way, good work on the Japanese, Jackie! You sounded great!



The show is stolen by French taxi driver, George (played by Yvan Attal), who deftly transforms from anti-American pacifist to blood-thirsty, Starbucks-swilling, "super-spy" chauffeur. The chase scenes involving George's taxi and the never-far-behind-Parisian-Triads are good fun.



Other than that, director Roman Polanski makes an appearance as a body-cavity-searching French detective.

I'm going to have to agree with everyone else when they say, "meh", on this one. While I enjoyed the experience as a whole (partly due to the fact that draft beer is on sale at the snack counter at Toho Cinemas in Roppongi), I recommend holding off until the DVD release. And then you should wait until somebody else buys it and borrow it from them.



One of the trailers.

Rush Hour 3

Spider-man 3

Yes, I've already seen it. Sorry, earthlings, but its world debut occurred in Japan today (May 1st, 2007).

The major themes in this installment are miscommunication / misunderstanding and forgiveness (both of self and others). Revenge also helps anchor the storyline.

This is an action-packed film (clocks in at a little over two hours) that doesn't waste any time getting started. Lots of twists and surprises, as usual, with both Tobey Maguire and James Franco showing a bit of range in portraying the good-guy/sinister-guy personalities that reside within them.

There's a lot of digital imagery in Spider-man 3 (special effects), but for some reason I didn't mind it as much as I did while watching the Matrix trilogy. On the plus side, the plot isn't too hard to follow. The villains (everyone seems to take a turn being one in this flick!) help keep the audience guessing, so my overall reaction to this movie is positive.

Spider-man 3 hits theaters in America on May 4th.

Spider-man 3

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Saw this movie last night (part two of the trilogy), and I'd have to say that my reaction is more positive than negative.

Allow me to explain. There's a lot going on in this film--different people pursuing overlapping goals on the high seas. The separate stories are at times easy to follow, but then suddenly become confusing. One-liners and comical scenes are plentiful, but I had to press rewind a couple of times to make sure I had heard the dialogue correctly.

Maybe I just need to watch it again to get the storyline down. However, it's rarely a good thing when you feel tired once the movie's finished. Also, I had suspected from the start that this movie was going to be a bridge to the third and final (?) chapter of the trilogy, and it turns out that my inklings were dead on. Johnny Depp is as solid as he can be in this tangle of action sequences, but what we are now left with is a situation where a weak third edition (one that doesn't contain enough of the charm that makes the The Curse of the Black Pearl enjoyable the second and third time you watch it) will end up pissing off a lot of fans like the Matrix trilogy did.

In the end I'll leave it to the real critics. My thoughts on "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" can by summed up by the likes of Philip Wuntch, a writer for the Dallas Morning News, who said, "Mr. (Gore) Verbinski is an extremely skilled traffic director."

Sean Burns from the Philadelphia Weekly made a good point when he observed that "...the fool thing just keeps going and going...and going. (Does a Pirates sequel really need to be five minutes longer than GoodFellas?)."

If you didn't catch "Dead Man's Chest" when it was at the Cineplex, good! You would have missed something reasonably important when you went to the bathroom. I'm going to be very cautious about paying to see the third installment due to my negative experience with the final of the Matrix series. However, I will say that I have all the faith in the world in Depp, so I'm predicting a satisfying reprieve next summer.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Troy

I'm on a roll. I just watched this movie as well. I tend to enjoy Brad Pitt movies where he's using his fists. Snatch and Fight Club come to mind. I guess I figured that Troy would be along the same lines in that he might end up beating a few people senseless. In this movie he skips straight to killing, but hey.

My opinion of Troy is very simple. The younger men in this film don't act so well. The older men do. That is all.

Troy

Baby's First Horror Movie

Not since I was in junior high school, way back in the day, have I watched a horror movie. I remember a slumber party over at Jesse's place, the one on Mtn. Street Extension that burned down, where we watched a couple of movies that were way too scary for me.

I have a very active imagination, so I can't sleep at night after I've seen something really interesting, disturbing, thrilling, etc. I remember when I was one of the first people at the scene of a pretty messy traffic accident back in tenth grade. Two people died in that wreck; one of them, the guy with his face pushed over near his right ear, stopped breathing while I was holding him. Needless to say, I didn't sleep for a few nights after that. Actually, mom said that I didn't really speak very much for the better part of two weeks. I don't really remember that part, but I guess the moral of the story is that I'm a big baby.

So the effects of The First Power on the former version of myself at age 12 were significant. The whole demonic possession thing really got inside my head, and I haven't watched a horror flick since. Until last night, that is. I watched The Grudge with my wife. It's a remake of a Japanese film, and it stars Sarah Michelle Gellar. It was reasonably scary, but I paid more attention to the cinematography, music, and acting than to all the killing that was going on.

I'm not a born-again horror fan or anything, but I'm happy to report that I could be persuaded to watch another horror film now. Hmmm, I wonder if I should try watching The First Power again...

Baby's First Horror Movie